


one small sacrifice

by bigstrongboss



Category: Team Fortress 2
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-04
Updated: 2020-01-04
Packaged: 2021-02-26 04:09:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,445
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22042930
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bigstrongboss/pseuds/bigstrongboss
Summary: a late night discussion
Relationships: Demoman & Soldier (Team Fortress 2)
Comments: 9
Kudos: 34





	one small sacrifice

**Author's Note:**

> another old fic i never uploaded. unedited. there may be similarities between this and the previous fic i posted, for which i apologise- i believe that one was an attempt to re-write this that ended up completely changing trajectory. consider it entirely separate. i also cut this short because i felt it rambled on too long so i hope it is not now too abrupt.

"Sometimes I think I should have died too."

Demo spoke his confession into the still blackness of their room with the sort of resigned confidence that comes with being unable to see the person you're addressing, voice quiet but steady. He stared up at the ceiling, fingers interlocked behind his head, jaw clenched in anticipation of Soldier's response.

"Huh?"

"On Loch Ness," he clarified, "when I was six."

For a long moment Soldier said nothing, and Demo thought he might have fallen asleep until he heard a soft, "oh."

They lapsed back into silence. Demo rolled onto his side and drew his sheets up to his chin, listening to Soldier's breathing from across the room. He knew he would say something else, but how long he would have to wait was uncertain.

Sooner than he had expected, Soldier conceived of a reply. "Why?"

Demo shrugged. It had seemed self-evident, but now he didn't know how to articulate himself. "My shite explosives. My fault. Should have been my due to pay, and not the folks who took me in. Especially not them." He bit his lower lip.

"Tavish, you were six," Soldier informed him. There was no pity in his statement, only a sober sense of factuality that Demo would have found insufferable coming from anyone else, the implication that they knew the specifics of his life better than he knew them himself. "Kids are morons, even bomb-building prodigies. It's not like you _ knew _ you were going to blow your parents- adoptive parents- to gibs."

"Aye," he sighed, grimacing at Soldier's imagery, "but it's not just that." This was the difficult part. He chewed the inside of his cheek and drew in a deep breath through his nose. "I think... when you're a murderer at six years old, you can't just, you know, live a normal life. No one knows what to do with you- except the ones that want to lock you away from civilised society so you can't traumatise their kids at school with tales of bloody manslaughter."

"Did you do that?" Soldier interrupted.

Demo snorted. "More the teachers. Turns out when they ask you to write an essay about a dream you once had, they don't mean the one where you watched Nessie shred your family to gory pieces with her teeth." He paused. "I had those dreams a lot. Until my birth parents took me in, I'd say." He stopped again and sighed. "I think, sometimes, was it worth it? Living on from then, doomed to be an outcast for the rest of my life? I could have died then and there and maybe that would have been better for me. For everyone. Ach," he waved his hand dismissively, "I don't know why I'm blathering on about this. I’m glad I ended up here. I’m glad I reunited with my real parents. I've made my peace with the… collateral damage."

"Doesn't sound like it," Soldier murmured. "If you didn't care anymore, you wouldn't have brought it up."

He really wished he could see Soldier's face.

"I was a messed up kid too. Well, I didn't kill anyone- no offense- unless insects count, but I know..." he trailed off, and Demo tapped his fingers together impatiently, waiting for him to continue, "I know guilt. Over the stupid decisions you make when you're a kid. But there's no point moping over them, you know? You don't know any better, and either someone proves you wrong or you only realise when someone gets hurt, and by then there's nothing you can do but apologise and move on. Or be more careful measuring your- your- your chemicals, whatever you put into your goddamn bombs."

"Chemicals is right." Demo said, and pushed himself into a sitting position. His night vision was garbage, even with his one eye working overtime, but he could make out the faint silhouette of Soldier. "Little ambiguous, but technically accurate. And I... I think killing my own parents was a little more than a screw up, Soldier, but thanks. Nice to know you have some self-reflection in you, at least."

"Pah, I'm full of self-reflection. I have an internal hall of mirrors."

"You ever thought to do some self-reflection on how great you think America is?"

"No one's ever proved me wrong on that."

"If you-"

"It's too late to discuss this!" Soldier announced, flopping back onto his pillow. "Goodnight, Demo. Have sweet American dreams."

He rolled his eye. "Aye, you too." If there was one thing he could always rely on Soldier for, it was total and utter refusal to consider America as anything but a sacred land for freedom lovers.

He lay stock-still on his back, eye wide open, and listened to Soldier toss and turn for an almost record-breaking five minutes before he spoke up again. "You still awake?"

Soldier grunted.

"What did you mean, when you said you knew guilt? There a story behind that?"

As soon as he said it, he could _ hear _Soldier tense up. "It's also too late for storytelling," Soldier mumbled.

"Ach, come on! You know my dark, tragic past, and I'm beginning to suspect you were in a coma until you woke up and left for Poland."

"There's not much to say," Soldier told him, wringing his sheets. "My memories are... hazy. Thinking about my life before Poland is like trying to recall a dream from this time last year."

"So where do the regrets come in?"

Soldier barked out a harsh, brusque laugh, and clapped his hands together. "I remember enough to know that I was a goddamn tyrant of a kid. Really nasty. If you had been born and raised in America like a normal person and lived on my street, I would have beat the shit out of you every day."

"Hey, I wasn't an easy target!"

"No, I'm sure you would have put up an honourable fight, but I was big and strong for my age, and I fought dirty." He sighed and rubbed his forehead. "I was like that for a long time- well into my teenage years, no doubt. I had no self-discipline, no respect for my fellow American, and I was so _ angry _all the time- sometimes I would start screaming, and I wouldn't stop until I felt like my throat was ripping apart." He laughed again, but this time it weak and derisive, distilled self-disgust. "My parents had no goddamn clue how to handle me."

Demo blinked. "That's not normal, Soldier."

"It's not normal to start building bombs when you're six years old either, but I'm not telling you how you should have spent your childhood!" He jabbed a finger in Demo's direction.

"That was normal for me," he pointed out, "I'm a DeGroot. In fact, it would have been concerning if I _ hadn't _developed an interest in blowing shit up by then."

Soldier grumbled something under his breath and turned his attention to his fingernails. Demo leaned back against the headboard and exhaled slowly, closing his eye.

"Can I ask you something, Soldier?"

"Affirmative."

"What was it like, growing up with parents? Without any weird tradition crap or expectations? Being treated- for the most part- as an ordinary kid?"

The bed-frame creaked under Soldier's weight as he shifted forward, closing the wide gap between them by a few centimetres as if that would somehow make their conversation more private. "I don't remember much of it," he frowned, "but it's not as great as it's chalked up to be. When you're a kid, and you don't have a history of playing with explosives, you can never intimidate an adult. Even if you push other kids around all day. You're small and weak and no one takes you seriously. It’s… I don’t miss it, truth be told. It’s a vulnerable time.”

Demo nodded, thinking. “Wasn’t it nice, though, frolicking about with no responsibilities for years? Not a real worry in sight?”

“I don’t remember. Maybe. I can’t remember.... my earliest solid memory is from when I was maybe fourteen. You get responsibilities that age, so I don’t know. Ask Scout. He’s practically still a kid. And he certainly doesn’t take any goddamn responsibility. You should have seen what he did with my boots after-”

“Jane.” He raised a hand to silence him. “I don’t need to know about your boots.”

“Right, right. Goodnight then, private. We’ve got a payload to push tomorrow” Soldier lay back down, pulling his covers up to his chin.

“Night, Jane.”

He splayed out, limbs dangling off the edges of the tiny bed provided by his employers, and lay still. Time passed. Soldier started snoring.

Maybe it wasn’t so bad, being a murderer.


End file.
